yeah, its funny they even had to make a post on their blog saying, "No, she's not dropping them, thats just how the animatic is, she would never hurt them"

Its stuff like that project that makes me so fascinated with fandoms (not just that one, though that does occupy a large portion of my time online (and here ofcourse ), but only because so much fanwork (music and vids mostly) get released everyday its sometimes hard to keep up, but fandoms in general). so much love, passion, emotion, creativity and attention go into this stuff, whether its the live action vids or machinima (like that Civil Protection you mentioned in the youtube thread) that get made for games, or its fan art, fics or music that get made for books (like our resident musician here ).

stuff to make you laugh, make you think, make you cry, or make you just say, thats awesome. its sometimes hard to feel that in "professional" work.

"The reason an author needs to know the rules of grammar isn't so he or she never breaks them, but so the author knows how to break them."

Oh I hear you. I got a sneak peek at something VERY special a few weeks ago that is to put it mildly AMAZING! I just want to talk about it and discuss it and share it... but I cant. The written word.

They walk among us.

Its not just here in "computerland" Rap. When the hubby was in the music industry we met so many "talented" (so not the right word) musicians who could make their instruments talk. You know... mates of the "professional" muso's who got paid to play... but they just played for the love of it and it was their life. And noone else ever heard them... except a few of we the lucky ones. I can still hear riffs in my head that will never be heard again or by anyone else because they were never recorded. My hubby was a recording engineeer who offered but nope! They didnt want that ... they just wanted to play and share.

there was a guy on the Colbert report a few months back talking about this archive online, and i wish i could remember the name or i'd post the site. but this guy had gone all over the world with a two reel recorder (and later cassette) in the 60's, 70's and 80's collecting tribal music, nursery rhymes, childrens songs, folk stories and music. wanting to share with the world what these people in far away lands had to offer. some didn't want to be recorded, but many did. They didn't want fame, but wanted people to hear it.

Now, people have an outlet for that. and alot of the good stuff are hidden treasures. for example as i said alot of fan stuff for mlp gets made every day, so in the 2 years since the show started fans have made literally over 3000 pieces of music (most of that in the last year actually). spanning every genre.

its easy enough to find top 10 or even top 100 lists, but usually those are just whats popular, or got found because the artist has alot of subscribers. there is an archive though that has collected every track they could find and put it in one large bittorrent file with updates coming once a month to add new tracks. sifting through it i find so many really great pieces but when you go to their youtube page the song may only have maybe a few hundred views, a few have less than that. When the songs in those top lists have a few hundred thousand or even a few million views. but they are still great.

A few artists offer the option to donate, or have a bandcamp account where the price for each song is often "name your price", but usually its only so they can get better hardware or software. but most of the time the only time money has ever changed hands for the music is from the various charity albums that have been done. the vast majority just do it for fun.

"The reason an author needs to know the rules of grammar isn't so he or she never breaks them, but so the author knows how to break them."

When I was very young we lived way way way out west in outback Queensland. Our town had one of the huge reservations near it. Back then, more full blood aborigines who went walkabout and lived a more "traditional" style of life in gunyahs and then there were the fringe-dwellers who lived on the edge of the town in hsnaty towns who were neither in town or in the reservations, and then the town dwellers who could only live in town if they gave up every trace of aborigine livestyle or tradition.

The reservation was a long way out and it was ONE rule we always followed not to go out near it. Dad was way ahead of his time and I do believe it was out of respect. Though not going near the fringe dwellers was for safety as alcohol abuse was pretty bad. This was way way back before any whites could give a damn or got snotty and arty farty about aborigine music or art.

Some nights, the traditional natives would have corroborees and the music of the sticks, the chanting and the didgeridoos would carry through the air. Not loud.. it was a long way off... but it was such a deep base sound that went right through your bones. Wonderful!!! Of course back then noone was recording it and as it was private music to be used at ceremonies it wasnt heard, and once we moved it was a long time before I ever heard it again.

I still love it.

It must have been eerie for the town aborigines to hear that in the night when they had been forced to give it up.